[The Typing Baker] About Trust

by Park Soyeon

Published 19 Aug.2022 10:03(KST)

[Asia Economy Reporter Park So-yeon] The early K-quarantine system was too harsh. The disclosure of daily movement paths down to the minute and second was somewhat effective from a quarantine perspective, but on the other hand, it fatally destroyed someone's life. Personal privacy and identity were exposed, and hatred against minorities and baseless rumors about individuals were also generated.

The desperation to protect myself and my family from an unfamiliar disease, an unknown infectious disease, led us to overlook the destruction of others' lives. The information provided by telecommunications companies according to government policies and laws, and our tacit consent to this. Although infectious diseases are still around us, now that movement path disclosures have disappeared, looking back at those times chills the heart. In the face of an unfamiliar infectious disease, we were cruelly harsh to others (他者).

Novelist Park Sang-young's new novel About Faith is inspired by the 2020 Itaewon COVID-19 cluster infection incident. It is the final work in the "Love Trilogy," following the previous works Love in the Big City and I Want to Become One-Dimensional, which gained attention as a nominee for the International Booker Prize, one of the world's top three literary awards. The four short stories included in this book were written in 2021 and 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world unprecedentedly. The social distancing and resulting isolation during the pandemic, and the pain of minorities who were further discriminated against and excluded, are vividly portrayed in the novel.

The four connected short stories in the book each begin with the protagonist's name on the starting page. They are Nam-jun from These Days' Kids, Chan-ho from Love After a Fortnight, Han-young and Eun-chae from The Moment We Become Us, and Cheol-woo from About Faith. They are all connected as coworkers, acquaintances, lovers, and so on. This is one of the pleasures of reading this novel. Characters who were supporting roles in earlier stories appear as main characters in later ones, each unfolding their own story.

In These Days' Kids, Nam-jun, who started working as an intern at a magazine company at twenty-six, does his best at everything but is frequently harshly scolded by his supervisor Bae Seo-jeong, who is only four years older. This is a careless and ruthless mistake of youth that we have all experienced at least once without knowing better.

In Love After a Fortnight, Chan-ho, who spent his twenties meeting people in online LGBTQ+ communities and hopping between clubs right after the college entrance exam, begins his first long-term relationship with Nam-jun, who is completely different in appearance, disposition, and job characteristics. The story allows readers to indirectly empathize with the hardships faced by those with sexualities that conflict with norms, as they strive to be recognized as full members of society and to live together harmoniously.

A Pandemic More Cruel to Minorities
Hoping Not to Be Stigmatized or Excluded

In The Moment We Become Us, Han-young, transferred to a new team, builds a team with the new team leader Eun-chae and gains recognition at the company by successfully producing YouTube content. However, Eun-chae and Han-young get caught up in office politics unrelated to them, straining their relationship. Nevertheless, the story depicts human moments where they give each other trust as colleagues and friends.

About Faith centers on Cheol-woo, who quit being a photographer and runs an izakaya in Itaewon. Cheol-woo finds vitality after achieving a long-held dream and living with Han-young. But after a brief happiness, the pandemic that swept the world puts the business at risk of closure, and Han-young, shocked by her aunt's death, starts wandering outside, shaking Cheol-woo once again. It makes one reflect on the harshness of life, where sincere feelings and efforts toward a relationship based on trust and a better future can be shattered at any time.

In the "Author's Note," Park Sang-young expresses his hope that no one enduring daily life will be stigmatized or excluded. Until a few years ago, the author, who held two titles as a company employee and a writer, used to commute to work. On crowded buses after work, things like worn-out black shoes and pants shiny at the seat area caught his eye. The author says he engraved the emotional temperature of his company worker days throughout the book. His perspective on social maladies is sharp yet warm.